Journal Entries
It never rains...
Posted Apr 27, 2005
My mom just called me downstairs with the news that my dad has managed to break one of the few bones he had not broken before... I don't know wether to laugh or to cry, he is nearing 80, and if he gets another piece of metal into his body, i don't think he will be able to pass airport security anymore.(and why don't we have smileys for hysteria?) his last two breaks - approximately 7 and 4 years ago - healed very fast, although he hates doing physiotherapy. This time its the left shoulder - as opposed to the right, which was the one 7 years ago - and no cast, they just wrapped it to his body.
Oh go, oh god, oh god...
Only good thing i can see that my workload for spring and summer is mostly research, so it will be easier to take turns in babysitting him - i just have to take my books downstairs, not the whole PC.
and just when i renewed my swimmingpool membership... .... ......
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Latest reply: Apr 27, 2005
Feeling violated
Posted Apr 26, 2005
after making such a production when i had asked fo r 1 hour (just one hour) of privacy in my own flat, when his was being renovated and his roomie + computer were staying in my living room, after yelling at me to get out when i was packing up our dad's books, after making it clear that I'm not welcome in his flat - hell, the only time since getting the books out that incident when my mother *made* him invite me in to see the antique chest our uncle gave to him, and then I was only in the livingroom, today I found out that my brother keeps coming into my flat when i'm out and the housekeeper is cleaning, and walks around *everywhere*, doesn't even think of it important enough to mentioned it to me ion person! No, the housekeeper thought it was a sign of his affection to me, and i should go easy on him!
i'm so angry, i'm alternating between screaming and crying, and i can't even confront him personally, because i'm simply not up to the scene it will cause.
i mean, i'm more often at home than not - so why didn't he ask me (or my mom as the house owner for that matter) before doing this, and just went ahead and violated my privacy?
yesterday he had an expert on wooden floors over to give an estimate on renovating his floors. i think, if i hadn't taken off my house key, he would have just brought the man in without a bhy your leave.
I really really hate this. and I really really hate him. and people wonder why - "You just have each other, you should make nice" - somebody should tell him!
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Latest reply: Apr 26, 2005
Feeling lazy, feeling good
Posted Apr 23, 2005
it's funny that the only real time measurement i have for our new home is this journal? it is 4 years and 4 month since i last wrote, and its about 4 years and 10 months since we moved here. i have to tell my mom...
it's been lots of ups and downs since then, but what i feel is important right now that IT'S FINISHED! that is, the translation i have been working on for the past 7 months is finished. now i have about three month worth of revisions, research and additions to the main text (its out-dated) ahead, and i'm 1 month behind my schedule, but then again i spent one month in late winter traveling - both outside and inside of the country - so it is acceptable. add to that. that i accepted two weeks ago a contract on translating 8 childrens science books and have been working on two completely different translations at the same time...
but IT'S FINISHED!
the main text was finished on wednesday (i felt like the character in "Romancing the Stone" - only my cat was awake to celebrate with) and i sent the kids books this morning to the publisher, and am feeling exceptionally well and lazy. even on my travels i was feeling the pressure, but now i have one week of delicious holiday ahead, and i'm enjoying it already
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Apr 23, 2005
Locked Out or what fun I am having with my new flat
Posted Jan 5, 2001
At long last, the renovation of the two upstairs flats is finished. Well, there are still about 1000000 bits and pieces still to be corrected, I will have to go next door for eating because only God knows when I get my kitchen, and the mess the painters made in my beautiful baby-blue bathroom with IRREMOVABLE green and yellow paint is really sickening but ... I'M IN!!!!
The works finished on January 1, 2001 - had to be finished because we couldn't put my aunts off visiting (and nosing around) any longer. But it was sheer luck as they said that they would come after 3 PM, and we put my flat door (a *lovely* green 
) on at 4 PM, but the guests arrived with the usual Iranian punctuality at 6. Disaster averted. And if the lock and key is a little stiff, who cares? I out-manuvered my father by taking my bed upstairs to be able to show off a "ready" bedroom - and HAD to sleep there because I had no place to sleep downstairs 
. Of course he had his things moved into the other upstairs flat with dispatch so I wouldn't be "alone" - and my mother surprised him by categorically refusing to come upstairs untill she has moved everything up. So we slept (and are still sleeping) in three different flats and meet only for eating.
On Jan. 2 I got up and went down for breakfast. When I wanted to go back into my new home, I found that the door won't open. To be more precise, the key refused to turn. My mother had to go away and I remained with my father thinking about the problem. The logical solution seemed to call a locksmith - but the thought that they say that the door has to be broken open made me shudder. My BEAUTIFUL new door! What to do now? Suddenly I remembered the airshaft between my guesttoilet and the guesttoilet and bathroom of the adjacent flat. The last two have windows to it, but my flat has a door to it too - and the door was open because freshly painted! One last check - yes, the bathroom window is big enough for me to go through. I got a ladder and the adventure began.
Looking back now, I see that I should have had:
1. taken the damn mirror down instead of worrying about it falling down,
2. put a pillow on the window egde which was - and is - damn sharp,
3. asked my father to steady *me* instead of the mirror,
4. lowered a chair or *something* throught the window to lessen the height on the other side,
5. fallen down, cracked my head on the opposite wall and broken my neck,
6. delivered myself to a psychiatric ward for doing something this crazy ...
Hindsight ...
Well, I got through with the right leg and had to lower myself with the left leg still on the other side because of points 2 and 3. hanging on my hands and then on the left knee while moving the hands because of point 4, and finally landed while avoiding point 5. Point 6 is still under debate by all who here about this
I was shaking for an hour afterwards but I got the door open. Later our handyman came by and said the lock was stuck because some paint had gotten into it. Of course, my leg was hurting like nobody's business but I thought that I had just stretched my muscles - until that night when I got ready for bed ...
The short of it: the back of my tigh down to the knee is colored in the same shade as my bathroom tiles, with darker spots imitating the design of the tiles. just below the knee (where I was hanging on with, remember?) has a tennis-ball sized bruise, again in the exact color of my reddish curtains, with smaller bruises below it.
Was it worth it?
YES!
(My Flat - A 5 Smiley Home)
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Jan 5, 2001
Locked Out or what fun I am having with my new flat
Posted Jan 5, 2001
At long last, the renovation of the two upstairs flats is finished. Well, there are still about 1000000 bits and pieces still to be corrected, I will have to go next door for eating because only God knows when I get my kitchen, and the mess the painters made in my beautiful baby-blue bathroom with IRREMOVABLE green and yellow paint is really sickening but ... I'M IN!!!!
The works finished on January 1, 2001 - had to be finished because we couldn't put my aunts off visiting (and nosing around) any longer. But it was sheer luck as they said that they would come after 3 PM, and we put my flat door (a *lovely* green ) on at 4 PM, but the guests arrived with the usual Iranian punctuality at 6. Disaster averted. And if the lock and key is a little stiff, who cares? I out-manuvered my father by taking my bed upstairs to be able to show off a "ready" bedroom - and HAD to sleep there because I had no place to sleep downstairs . Of course he had his things moved into the other upstairs flat with dispatch so I wouldn't be "alone" - and my mother surprised him by categorically refusing to come upstairs untill she has moved everything up. So we slept (and are still sleeping) in three different flats and meet only for eating.
On Jan. 2 I got up and went down for breakfast. When I wanted to go back into my new home, I found that the door won't open. To be more precise, the key refused to turn. My mother had to go away and I remained with my father thinking about the problem. The logical solution seemed to call a locksmith - but the thought that they say that the door has to be broken open made me shudder. My BEAUTIFUL new door! What to do now? Suddenly I remembered the airshaft between my guesttoilet and the guesttoilet and bathroom of the adjacent flat. The last two have windows to it, but my flat has a door to it too - and the door was open because freshly painted! One last check - yes, the bathroom window is big enough for me to go through. I got a ladder and the adventure began.
Looking back now, I see that I should have had:
1. taken the damn mirror down instead of worrying about it falling down,
2. put a pillow on the window egde which was - and is - damn sharp,
3. asked my father to steady *me* instead of the mirror,
4. lowered a chair or *something* throught the window to lessen the height on the other side,
5. fallen down, cracked my head on the opposite wall and broken my neck,
6. delivered myself to a psychiatric ward for doing something this crazy ...
Hindsight ...
Well, I got through with the right leg and had to lower myself with the left leg still on the other side because of points 2 and 3. hanging on my hands and then on the left knee while moving the hands because of point 4, and finally landed while avoiding point 5. Point 6 is still under debate by all who here about this
I was shaking for an hour afterwards but I got the door open. Later our handyman came by and said the lock was stuck because some paint had gotten into it. Of course, my leg was hurting like nobody's business but I thought that I had just stretched my muscles - until that night when I got ready for bed ...
The short of it: the back of my tigh down to the knee is colored in the same shade as my bathroom tiles, with darker spots imitating the design of the tiles. just below the knee (where I was hanging on with, remember?) has a tennis-ball sized bruise, again in the exact color of my reddish curtains, with smaller bruises below it.
Was it worth it?
YES!
(My Flat - A 5 Smiley Home)
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jan 5, 2001
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nim the cat (STILL choking in air pollution)
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